Poem of the day

[pallas_athena]

I'm informed that it's International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day. Today's mandate: "Give away professional-quality work online."

My offering is a ballade I wrote some years ago. A ballade, for those who don't know, is a French form with three eight-line stanzas and a four-line envoi at the end. Charles d'Orléans wrote armloads of them during his 25-year exile in England. In the play Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrano improvises a ballade while duelling a foolish viscount in Act I. One of the unsung masters of the ballade in English was Dorothy Parker: you can find hers here, here, here and here.

This particular ballade was sent to my then-partner one Valentine's Day, along with some shiny new Calvin Kleins. Enjoy!

A library on Love I've read,
And many a spring and summer's day
I've passed in making sore my head
And growing prematurely gray
In sorting truth from mere hearsay--
As ever, truth defies belief--
Yet still I am a fool today,
For Love and Life, alas, are brief.


Know this, you voyagers who tread
Lightfooted on Love's shining way:
That one whose life by Love is led
Shall ever err and often stray;
A thousand monsters face and slay
To wreathe your head with Daphne's leaf
For one triumphant, fleeting day,
For Love and Life, alas, are brief.


Some wing their way from bed to bed
And love as many as they may;
Some follow Ariadne's thread,
One silver strand, and never stray.
Some never give the heart away
In terror lest it come to grief,
Yet all too soon their prides decay,
For Love and Life, alas, are brief.


L'envoi:
Prince, may your heart be light alway
And never know a day of grief!
Where it may lead make no delay,
For Love and Life, alas, are brief.